


Navel-Gazing

by TheSaddleman



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Anniversaries, Belly buttons, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Humour, No Angst, Regeneration, Romance, a bit of meta, slightly canon divergent, weird humour, whouffaldi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-11 04:45:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13516845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSaddleman/pseuds/TheSaddleman
Summary: Clara Oswald realizes the Doctor's current incarnation is missing a piece of "standard equipment". This is my 50th story uploaded to Archive of Our Own.





	Navel-Gazing

**Author's Note:**

> This is my 50th story uploaded to Archive of Our Own. I wanted to write something profound and meaningful. I came up with this instead. Enjoy!
> 
> Dedicated with affection to the late Patrick Troughton (Second Doctor) and Michael Craze (Ben), who I'd like to think would have gotten a chuckle out of something that is revealed herein.
> 
> My profound thanks once again to [Universe on Her Shoulders](https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders/works) for her excellent beta reading of this story. I really am proud and happy to have reached the 50-story milestone and I hope to have more stories posted soon.

The Doctor made a mental note to send a testimonial to his tailor on Savile Row as he examined his dress shirt and was pleased to see it intact and still crisp, if somewhat filthy, its usual brilliant white obscured by a thick layer of congealed mud. Most shirts would have been in tatters after the day he’d just had. 

***

_**Earlier:** _

The muddy part of the equation was understandable, seeing as he and his companion, Clara, had endured a strenuous, if somewhat invigorating two hours and fourteen minutes of crawling through a swamp in order to escape a giant alien spider nest on CoraPeebee, an otherwise-uninhabited worldlet the two had discovered after the Doctor had printed out a star chart, taped it to a TARDIS bulkhead, and had Clara throw a jelly baby at it at random to determine their next destination. 

Well, on her third try, anyway. The grape-flavoured jelly baby missed entirely, prompting a sheepish “Just testing for wind-resistance” from Clara; the strawberry-flavoured jelly baby had struck a system where the Doctor still owed money for a parking fine, so he asked her to try again; the lime-flavoured jelly baby, however, had bounced off a system that the Doctor had never been to before. One awkward high-five later—Clara had to remind the Doctor how to do one—and they were on their way.

He’d also let Clara come up with a moniker for the first uncharted planet they found. She’d promptly named it after two video game characters she’d developed a crush on after she’d raided the TARDIS’ games room and found an RPG that wouldn’t be released until several years into her future.

All manner of fun and frivolity followed on CoraPeebee, mostly of the “get wrapped in a giant spider web as you await being served to the king (or queen—hard to tell, it was dark) spider for a between-meals snack. But then the Doctor did a brilliant thing, which was matched by Clara doing an equally brilliant thing, which resulted in the Doctor doing a slightly more brilliant thing because he was the Doctor, and they managed to get free. After a two-hour-and-fourteen-minute slog through the mud, that is.

Upon returning to the TARDIS, and correctly interpreting the ship’s subsequent angry beeping as they entered as, “Get that $#@$-ing mud out of my console room,” Clara and the Doctor had dutifully headed for the showers. 

Well, “dutifully headed” is sort of underselling it, really. After exchanging a mischievous glance at the threshold of the console room, they’d whooped with laughter as they raced each other deep into the corridors that lined the infinitely large timeship, heading for the row of bathrooms the Doctor maintained for himself and his guests.

“I win!” Clara had called out as she reached the Doctor’s favourite bathroom first. She’d paused for a moment at the door, casting a triumphant, wholly imperious look at her slightly winded companion. The Doctor had smirked back with an _OK, you beat me (again)_ look. She’d then opened the door and started to pull off her sweater before pausing and turning around. “Shoo!” she’d admonished the Doctor, who honestly was just conducting a brief visual inspection to make sure she hadn’t sustained any injuries while fighting off a den of angry space…

Ahh, who was he kidding? 

He’d shrugged her a _sorry_ and then headed down the corridor to one of the many smaller, less-luxurious bathrooms. He’d have to make do with the one that resembled the lobby of Caesar’s palace (not the hotel, the _real_ Caesar’s palace). Clara, of course, got to use the cool one that was a scale replica of the Sydney Opera House. (The Doctor liked to sing in the shower; don’t we all?)

*** 

_**Now:** _

Having now removed his admirably intact shirt, and his other space mud-caked garments, the Doctor took his shower (reminding himself in the process that the acoustics in Caesar’s palace just didn’t match up to that of the Sydney Opera House. That or he’d simply chosen a below-par aria to warble). Afterwards, he began to dress in a new set of clothes that the ship had materialized while he was under the water; a set that looked more or less the same as the old set (the TARDIS sometimes lacked imagination. That, or she happened to like the Doctor looking like a magician). 

He hadn’t quite gotten to the part of the proceedings involving putting his fresh shirt on when he heard a quiet cough behind him.

Clara leaned against the doorway, dressed in a fresh pair of jeans and a T-shirt embroidered with the legend, _Property of The Queen_. She cast her elfin smile in the Doctor’s direction. It wasn’t often that she got to see him shirtless. Actually, as she looked at the silver-haired Time Lord’s shoulders as he began to turn in her direction, she realized she’d never actually seen _him_ shirtless. 

(The previous Doctor? Yeah … she’d seen a bit more than she’d bargained for a couple of times with him, actually. Best not to think too hard about it. Not that it had been awful, exactly … but she hadn’t been mentally prepared to see him starkers on Christmas Day. She’d actually been mentally prepared for seeing _this_ Doctor shirtless for quite some time. But he’d stubbornly decided that modesty would be part of his current lifestyle. Dammit.)

“Yes, Clar- What’s wrong?” the Doctor frowned as he turned fully around and Clara started pointing at him, her eyes wide and her non-pointing hand covering her mouth. He’d seen that look once before, just before their visit with Tasha Lem.

“I have my trousers on, Clara,” he said, subtly checking to make sure this was, in fact, an accurate statement. “Yes, yes, I _do_ have my trousers on.” He checked something else. “Yes, zipped up like a Slitheen, too.”

She shook her head. That wasn’t the problem.

The Doctor draped his new shirt over his forearm. “Then what’s the issue? It’s rude to point, you know, Clara. I don’t point at you when your eyes inflate like Dizzy Gillespie’s cheeks during a trumpet solo. Like they’re doing now. Have I grown a bullet wound or something?”

Clara talked through her hand. “No. It’s just … you, uh, eh, uh …”

“Yes, quite impressive, isn’t it?”

Clara stopped pointing and withdrew her hand from her mouth, suddenly confused. “What’s quite impressive?” 

“No idea. Just thought I’d take my chances and hope for the best.”

Clara rolled her eyes and shook her head. “You don’t get it! You’re missing, you know, your …” She pointed at the middle of her own stomach. “You know. Your … thing.”

The Doctor looked confused. “My thing’s a bit low-”

“-Your belly button, Doctor,” Clara interrupted. “You don’t have a belly button!”

“Oh, is that all? Why are you all panicky?”

“Most people have a belly button. Bow Tie You had a belly button.”

The Doctor looked confused. “Did I?” He shrugged. “I don’t always regenerate with all the same parts as before, Clara.” He resumed putting on his shirt. “Did I ever tell you that, after my first regeneration, I discovered I had a third nipple?”

Clara, in spite of herself, started to laugh. “What, like Christopher Lee in _Man with the Golden Gun_?”

“Jamie had a minor freak-out when he saw it. Polly just thought it was cool. Ben mumbled something about not being unique anymore. And life went on.”

The Doctor pointed at one of his biceps. “This arm grew a tattoo of a snake after my second regeneration. Caught me by surprise the first time I took a shower. And I bet you haven’t noticed my ear yet.”

“What about your ear? It’s just an ear. Two, in fact.”

The Doctor walked up to Clara and rather awkwardly pointed an earlobe in her direction. “Look closely. Don’t worry, it’s had a wash.”

Clara examined it closely and did a double take and frowned. “Since when did you get a piercing without telling me?”

“That’s the thing; I’ve never gotten a piercing. Not in this life, nor in any of my others. Never been my scene. Not a fan of needles. Too pointy.”

“So, how did you end up with an ear piercing? Fall asleep on a thumbtack?”

The Doctor started to head out of the bathroom and back towards the console room, Clara trotting along beside him.

“There’s a theory that our appearances are drawn from the Matrix and take aspects from previous Time Lords’ regenerations,” he explained. “It actually happened to me. My sixth body, the one that wore that rainbow-hued overcoat you borrowed for Coal Hill’s Christmas pantomime next year, was identical to that of Maxil, another Time Lord who regenerated some time before I underwent that specific change. I ended up with Maxil’s face and, sadly, a bit of his acerbic personality, too. And his aversion to carrot juice.”

“Some things haven’t changed. So, you’re telling me that somewhere there’s a double of you walking around wearing a big old pirate earring?” Clara laughed. “Maybe he plays in a punk band!” The thought of it made her laugh even harder.

“Punk rock is an underappreciated art form, Clara. And you of all people should understand the possibility that one might not be truly unique in this universe.”

Clara nodded. “Fair point.” She’d long since given up trying to catalogue all of her echoes that were spread throughout the Doctor’s timestream. “So does that mean some other Time Lord once looked like Moe from the Three Stooges and had an extra nipple?” 

“Time Lords are a genetic minestrone, Clara, so the nipple might have been random, or it might have come from someone else. That tattoo I acquired when I was exiled to Earth in the 1970s or ’80s was similar to one sported by another Time Lord I once knew called the Corsair.”

“The one you said was killed by a group of Poundland Frankensteins?” Clara said, plopping herself down into a chair near the console as the Doctor started to adjust the settings. 

“You don’t need to be dead to contribute to the Matrix. The Corsair was at about life seven when I got the tattoo. You don’t even need to be a Time Lord, apparently, just remembered by them. Remember how I realized that this face,” he said, making a theatrical gesture across it with his hand, “was inspired by a Roman whose family I saved at Pompeii? He had no Time Lord connection that I know of, but he existed in the memory of Sandshoes Me. So, when Sandshoes Me died and his memories were uploaded to the Matrix, that included memories of people who made an unconscious impact on his life, like Caecilius. I assumed my last face was actually unique, totally random, but at the same time I was mistaken for that human actor Crispin Glover enough times that it made me wonder of that time I took Steven and Vicki to see _Back to the Future_ might not have made an impression.”

“No one in the history of the universe had a chin like Bow Tie You, trust me,” Clara smiled.

The Doctor ignored the crack. “Wherever it came from, right now that chin’s filed away, waiting to someday get plastered onto an unsuspecting Time Lord who’s tripped over a brick. It might even be me. Someone, I forget who, told me once we sometimes revisit old favourites.”

“You say people you remember could become part of a Time Lord someday? Does that mean there might be other mes out there, besides my echoes?”

“Never say never. But I’m sure they’ll get use to those eyes, just like you’ve had to.”

Clara walked up to the Doctor, intentionally violating his personal space to poke a playful finger into his shirt-covered abdomen.

“But seriously, Doctor, no belly button? Isn’t that kind of a piece of … standard equipment, regardless of the face and,” she pointed at the small hole in his earlobe, “accessories?” 

The Doctor shrugged and turned aside, flipping some switches and admiring the self-control that prevented him from giggling when Clara Pillsbury Doughboy’d him. “Aside from collecting lint and holding those small paper umbrella things you get with drinks when you don’t have a convenient pocket, what use are they?”

“They don’t have a … wait, paper drink umbrellas?” She cocked an eyebrow, waiting for elaboration. When none was offered, she filed it under “try not to think about it” and continued. “Never mind. They represent … they’re remnants of our birth.”

“I know how babies are made, Clara. Some babies, anyway.”

“While I have to admit I can’t imagine anyone willingly bringing a creature like Missy into this world—sorry; couldn’t resist—I always thought Gallifreyans had babies the old-fashioned way. Hence the presence of a paper umbrella-holder in your predecessor’s tummy.”

“You’re assuming everyone is born the same way, Clara. There are alternatives on Gallifrey.”

“What, do Time Lords debate their offspring into existence?”

The Doctor leaned over and whispered something into Clara’s ear. Her eyes widened, and then the corners of her eyes crinkled as she smiled as he pulled away. “What, like sweaters? While that explains your hair at times, you’re taking the piss, aren’t you? Or does the Gallifreyan Kama Sutra resemble sewing pattern booklets?”

“That’s up to you to decide,” the Doctor said.

“Doesn’t sound like a lot of fun.”

“It’s dead boring, to be honest. Anyway, seeing as it’s so important to you…”

“What’s important?” she asked, but the Doctor had already disappeared under the console, opening a small compartment. He withdrew a bright-coloured object about the size and shape of a lunch box. It had a small antenna and a few other bits and bobs.

“Hold this,” he said.

“What is it?” Clara asked as she took it from him and gave it a wary look, as if it might blow up in her hands.

“It’s a machine I made a long time ago for a thing. It goes ding when there’s stuff,” the Doctor said. 

“In the years that I’ve known you, I think that is the single most unhelpful thing you’ve ever said to me. So, what am I supposed to do with it, pack up my sandwiches?”

Without replying, the Doctor opened up the front of the box, reached into a compartment and withdrew a pair of alligator clips attached to a long strand of wire. He pulled out the wire and the clips and then opened the front of his shirt, down near the general midpoint of his stomach. He winced a little as the clips took hold of his skin, then took out his sonic sunglasses and aimed them at the box.

A few _whirrs_ later, he said, “OK, Clara, see the little red button on top? Click it twice.”

“The last time I pushed a red button, bad things happened. You push it.”

“That was a _big_ red button. This is a _little_ red button.”

“It was a _little_ red button the last time.”

“Just push the thing, will you?”

“Why do I have a feeling this day is about to get weird...er?” Clara asked, but she obeyed and a bolt of something that looked like blue flame shot down the wire into the Doctor, who winced and folded over at the middle.

“ _Stirling Castle! Irn Bru! Rangers and Celtic!_ ” he said through gritted teeth.

“What?”

“Trying not to swe… _acramento, California!_ ”

He collapsed to his knees. Clara dropped the box and got to the floor in time to stop him from falling back and hitting his head.

“Doctor, I’m sorry!” she said.

“Don’t be. I brought this on myself. Just remember me to Vastra, Jenny, Strax, Osgood…” His eyes began to cross. “Clara, there’s just one thing I need you to know before…I… before I … go.”

“Yes, Doctor. What is it?” Clara was beside herself.

“Lean closer, so I can whisper.”

She did so. “What, Doctor, tell me!”

“Just one word … very important ...”

“Yes?”

“Gotcha.”

Clara leaned back to see the Doctor grinning.

“You!” she said, hitting him on the shoulder and letting him fall back to the floor.

“The look on your face! I’m sorry, Clara, I couldn’t resist.”

Clara turned her back on him. “That wasn’t funny, Doctor. I thought I was going to lose you, and you looked like you were in pain.”

“Now, that part wasn’t acting,” he said as he disconnected the clips. “It hurt like a kick to the arse, except on the opposite side, and a little higher, fortu-” he frowned, “-and now you’re cross with me.”

Clara had her arms folded, as she turned to face him, providing the Doctor all the visual cues he needed to make that determination. “You think?” she said. “I thought I was losing you and I don’t find regeneration funny.”

“Why can’t it be funny? You have to be able to laugh at everything, because it’s always funny. Some hilariously stupid things can happen with regenerations.”

“Let’s just agree to disagree on that,” Clara said. Her upset was replaced with curiosity. “So what the hell was that all about?”

“You seemed uncomfortable that I didn’t have a belly button, so I rectified that problem.”

“I don’t underst-” And then Clara began to laugh as she realized. It was so silly, so stupid … so _him_. “No, ser-seri-” Ever try saying “seriously” when you’re laughing so hard it’s difficult to draw breath? She coughed and tried again. “Seriously? You invented a machine that creates belly buttons?” Clara picked the device up off the floor, wiping her tearing eyes with one hand. “I know you do weird things like shave your head and go off chasing ghosts when you get bored, but this takes the cake, Doctor.”

“Well, technically, its purpose is not exclusively to do that. Though as I might have said when I wore that bow tie, it would have been cool. It’s a flesh and bone-adjuster, although the name needs a bit of polishing before I take it on _Dragon’s Den_. I told you how regenerations sometimes result in us coming out the other side without the same parts as before—maybe new parts, or maybe missing parts. I had a dream that I’d regenerated with no nose and I realized how inconvenient that could be—I mean, I’d have to start using sticky tape for my sonic glasses—so I thought I’d take a bit of old kit that dates back to Martha Jones and turn it into a tool to give me a nose, or a finger or some other part of the anatomy, if a regeneration ever left me short-changed. Uses AI to compare what I have now with what I had last time around and replaces it by doing a little bit of molecule rearrangement.”

“You did tell me once about a Time Lord who regenerated with no head,” Clara said.

The Doctor winced at that memory. He’d known that unfortunate soul at the academy. “Well, that sort of thing I can’t fix, yet. And if I regenerated without lungs or something vital, I probably wouldn’t stand a hope. But little things—like a missing belly button?—no problem.”

“You didn’t have to go through that for me,” Clara laughed. “Find yourself a man who’ll make a belly button for you…”

“What?”

“Never mind. So let me see! Let me see!”

The Doctor felt around his abdomen and winced. “Maybe we’d better not right now. It’s probably all bruised up. Tell you what, I’ll take you to Beach World and we can give it a spin.”

“Beach World? Sounds like a shop you might find next door to an Asda.”

“Not the most romantic of names, I admit. But when explorers from the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire discovered it a few millennia from now, or ago—what year is this again? Never mind—they pretty much had run out of deities and mythological figures to name planets after, so they decided to give us a world that does what it says on the tin. It’s mostly ocean, and the only landmasses are beaches.”

“Sounds like fun. Let’s go.”

***

Clara and the Doctor sat in the cool shade of a large umbrella, sipping mint juleps and staring out at the wide expanse of ocean on Beach World. What the Doctor hadn’t told Clara was that Beach World was actually the third moon around a ringed gas giant that put Saturn to shame, and Clara stared, fascinated, at what she could see in the sky, even through the bright blue. It never got old.

Clara was in a red swimsuit, large Audrey Hepburn-style sunglasses propped on her forehead. She’d managed to talk the Doctor into donning swim shorts but he was, bizarrely, still wearing one of his dress shirts. It had been left unbuttoned, exposing the Doctor’s recently revised stomach. The bruising was disappearing quickly, leaving behind what she’d expected to see.

But the Doctor seemed to be moping.

“Navel-gazing again?” she said, trying to keep her tongue out of her cheek as she did so.

“I was hoping for an outie,” he mumbled.

“You were—what?” Clara rolled her eyes. “There’s just no pleasing you Time Lords, is there? Come on, Doctor, let’s go for a swim.”

“I don’t really swim, Clara. I tend to look like a wet cat afterwards. Especially with these eyebrows.”

“Don’t care. Take that silly shirt off and let’s get into the water. I’ll race you to the buoy and back.”

The Doctor perked up. “Did you say … race?” He grinned.

***

Exhilarated from their swim, the Doctor and Clara sat in silence on the beach as the star Beach World’s parent planet orbited passed behind the gas giant, the equivalent of sunset for the little world. The two sat in silence, just enjoying each other’s company, Clara’s head resting on the Doctor’s shoulder. 

She looked up and saw a twinkle appear in the Doctor’s eye. Without warning, he uttered, “I just realized something” and placed the back of his hand against her forehead and concentrated.

“I feel fine, Doctor,” Clara protested.

“Hush. Checking.” The Doctor closed his eyes for a moment. Then they snapped open and he withdrew his hand. “I knew it! Forty-nine!”

“Forty-nine what?” The Doctor just smiled. “Doctor, forty-nine what?”

“Adventures!”

Clara shook her head, not comprehending.

“Oh come on, Clara, surely you’ve kept track with that wonderful pudding brain of yours!”

“Kept track of what? You’ve really lost me now. And I thought you didn’t like pudding brains.”

“Other people’s pudding brains are like pears; squishy and messy. But yours is like thick chocolate—nothing squishy about it, Clara. Think back to when bow tie me camped out on your driveway. Between that night and our little excursion with the spiders a few hours ago—that’s forty-nine adventures we’ve had, you and me.” The Doctor was beaming.

“Wow. Time flies,” Clara said. Had it really been _only_ forty-nine adventures? What counted as an adventure, she wondered. Surely those times they helped Nina with a wedding magazine cover shoot, recording radio adverts and selling confections didn’t count, or that weird day the TARDIS’ translation circuits went on the blink and she and the Doctor spent a few hours swearing at each other? Or that time they landed on some exotic world and a hummingbird landed on her head? No, they didn’t count. Could they?

But then there were other times. The mummy on the _Orient Express_ ; getting trapped inside the TARDIS when she was stolen by scavengers; Danny and the Nethersphere; Missy and Skaro; the day she and the Doctor helped make sure Bill Haley recorded “Rock Around the Clock” on time; that surreal evening when both of “her” Doctors—Bow Tie and Eyebrows—landed at Coal Hill School just before an alien teenager named Francis caused havoc. Yeah, they were adventures, all right. Some left her with scars—of varying degrees. But she wouldn’t have missed any of it for the world.

“Yeah, Doctor, time flies,” she repeated. She gave the Doctor a big hug, which his body automatically tried to shrug off (old habits) before his common sense (not to mention his brain) prevailed and he hugged her back.

“So, Clara Oswald,” he said, “my smol and mighty, if slightly control-freaky human from planet Earth, are you up for more shenanigans with a two-thousand-year-old mad man with a box?”

“Do you even need to ask?” Clara grinned. “After all, you’re _my_ two-thousand-year-old mad man with a box. I won’t give you up for anything.” She looked serious for a moment. “Not anymore. Or, at least, not until you want me to leave.”

Now it was the Doctor’s turn to turn serious. “Not going to happen, Clara. I’ve been greedy in the past, selfish. More than once I turned away … special people because I knew they could spend the rest of their life with me, but I couldn’t spend the rest of my life with them. Made me close myself off a bit, I guess. But I don’t feel that way anymore.”

“Oh? What happened?” Clara asked as she hugged him again.

“ _You_ happened,” the Doctor said. “You’re my Impossible Girl. The things you’ve been able to do—things that truly were impossible, like surviving my timestream and convincing the Time Lords to renew my regenerations—it proved to me that I really don’t know what might happen tomorrow, or a year from now. To you or to me.”

“But you’re a Time Lord-”

“Which means I’m excellent at trivia and can get Twitter-certified without jumping through hoops. But, for the things that really matter—I have no idea what’s coming, Clara. Tonight, tomorrow, next month, a decade from now. So, as a famous time traveller with hair as enviable as mine who adored another schoolteacher named Clara once said, I figured, what the hell.”

The two locked eyes for a long moment. Clara closed hers, waiting. And then she realized the Doctor wasn’t holding her anymore. Without him supporting her, she fell back slightly and opened her eyes, disappointed as she caught herself on her elbows and saw the Doctor racing to the TARDIS, which was parked nearby.

The Doctor was already on the opposite side of the console, alight with excitement, by the time she caught up with him. “So, Clara, what would you like to do for Number Fifty?” He pressed a switch and a list appeared on a monitor in front of him, which he scanned with his eyes for a moment before finding a possible candidate. “A family of Slitheen have commandeered a casino in the Rigel system.”

Clara put on the air of a commander considering a war plan. “Not important enough,” she said. “Most of the people who go to Rigellian casinos are crooks anyway, so they deserve it.”

“Fair point. OK, how about … ooh, good old Alpha Centauri wants us to act as emissaries to stop a civil war on Peladon.”

“Isn’t Alpha Centauri the one that looks like a giant walking…”

“Yup.”

“I’m still creeped out over the whole belly button thing. Pass.”

“OK, I … oh, this is cool. Oh, yeah, this is good,” the Doctor said, smiling meaningfully at Clara. Without another word, he swung the monitor around the console so it arrived in front of her. She read the words on the screen, and a big, Cheshire-cat grin began to curl her lips.

The Doctor raised his eyebrows, inquiringly.

Clara answered by going to his side, throwing her arms around him and planting a big kiss on his cheek. 

“That one is absolutely perfect,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Together, the two took hold of the dematerialization lever.

“Roll on fifty?” the Doctor asked.

“Roll on fifty,” said Clara.

And down went the lever.

**Author's Note:**

> You didn't really think I'd leave the Twelfth Doctor without a belly button, did you? The fan art folks alone would have had my head!
> 
> Toward the end I mix both official TV stories and examples of my own past work. 
> 
> I'm not the first to use "Sacramento, California" as an expletive. It has been used before in the comic book series _Love & Rockets_.
> 
> "CoraPeebee" refers to the characters of Cora Walker and Peebee in the recent video game _Mass Effect: Andromeda_ , which I was actually playing during the time I wrote this story.
> 
> At one point the Doctor whispers in Clara's ear about one possible way babies are made on Gallifrey. Anyone familiar with the Virgin New Adventures novel series, particularly _Lungbarrow_ , will know what he whispered to her.
> 
> The similarity between Matt Smith and Crispin Glover, especially back when Glover played Marty McFly's dad, is truly striking. And Whouffaldi fans long ago noticed the similarity between Doc Brown romancing a schoolteacher named Clara in _Back to the Future Part III_ and the Doctor and another schoolteacher named Clara.
> 
> Lastly, my original draft of this story referenced a cherry-flavoured jelly baby. My intrepid beta reader informs me that this is not a thing. I want to go on record as saying the world is a poorer place for lack of cherry-flavoured jelly babies. Are you listening, Maynards?


End file.
